Not surprisingly, there was a full turn out of GROGs to welcome a true Scottish Rugby hero to the February Lunch. From the reception he received, Tony Stanger, scorer of the last ditch try which won Scotland the 1990 Grand Slam over an uber confident English team, would have been in no doubt that he was among friends. By way of introduction to the guest speaker, Chairman Brian Rigby recited a poem he had written and dedicated to him. “It may not be very good”, he said in his typically humble way (and he might have been right), but it rhymed in places! Naturally, Tony Stanger could never speak to a gathering of the “Slam” generation without referring to the game itself. In asking how many present had been at the match, it seemed that almost everyone had been there. He was slightly surprised at that as the capacity of Murrayfield then was 67,000 and he had already shaken the hands of almost 190,000 fans who swore they were present! He explained how the whole thing had almost never happened. Following a poor game against Wales, he had suffered an injury to his collarbone and had been forced into a “play-off” against Roger Baird by the legendary Jim Telfer. Happily the SRU confirmed his selection and the rest, as they say, is history. Commenting on the Scottish team’s menacing march onto the pitch, he said it changed a collective ‘can do’ mentality to a ‘will do’ mentality that helped carry the team to victory. After admitting he had once worked for RBOS, Tony went on to describe what he now does for a living, involving the early recognition of talent in youngsters, both in sport and other areas of life. He is strongly of the view that as youngsters mature it can often be too late to correct bad habits. He clearly still loves the game of rugby. This was particularly reflected during question time with some thoughtful answers to a number of good questions. Already used to the experience, Tony made another piece of history when he was given the last ever bottle of the original brand of GROGS whisky in appreciation of his time, wit and good company.